Danny the Champion of the World

'He'll be having a very comfortable ride today, young Christopher,' my father said.

We stood beside the pumps waiting for Mrs Clipstone to arrive. It was the first of October and one of those warm windless autumn mornings with a darkening sky and a smell of thunder in the air.

What was so marvellous about my father, I thought, was the way he always surprised you. It was impossible to be with him for long without being surprised and astounded by one thing or another. He was like a conjuror bringing things out of a hat. Right now it was the pram and the baby. In a few minutes it would be something else again, I felt sure of that.

'Right through the village bold as brass,' my father said. 'Good for her!'

'She seems in an awful hurry, Dad,' I said. 'She's sort of half-running. Don't you think she's sort of half-running, Doctor Spencer?'

'I imagine she's just a bit anxious to unload her cargo,' the doctor said.

My father squinted down the road at the approaching figure. 'She does appear to be going a bit quick, doesn't she?' he said carefully.

'She's going very quick,' I said.

There was a pause. My father was beginning to stare hard at the lady in the distance.

'Perhaps she doesn't want to be caught in the rain,' he said. 'I'll bet that's exactly what it is. She thinks it's going to rain and she doesn't want the baby to get wet.'

'She could put the hood up,' I said.

He didn't answer this.

'She's running! Doc Spencer cried. 'Look!'

It was true. Mrs Clipstone had suddenly broken into a full sprint.

My father stood very still, staring at her. And in the silence that followed I fancied I could hear a baby screaming.

'What's up, Dad?'

He didn't reply.

'There's something wrong with that baby,' Doc Spencer said. 'Listen.'

At this point, Mrs Clipstone was about two hundred yards away from us but closing fast.

'Can you hear him now, Dad?'

'Yes, I can hear him.'

'He's yelling his head off,' Doc Spencer said.

The small, shrill voice in the distance was growing louder every second, frantic, piercing, non-stop.

'He's having a fit,' my father said. 'It's a good thing we've got a doctor handy'

Doc Spencer didn't say anything.

'That's why she's running, Doctor,' my father said. 'He's having a fit and she wants to get him in here quick and put him under a cold tap.'

'Some noise,' I said.

'If it isn't a fit,' my father said, 'you can bet your life it's something like it.'

'I doubt it's a fit,' the doctor said.

My father shifted his feet uneasily on the gravel of the driveway. 'There's a thousand and one different things keep happening every day to little babies like that,' he said. 'That's right, isn't it, Doctor?'